FAQ

Friday, May 24, 2013

I've Been Into Kpop For Five Years Now

Five years is a long time when it comes to music since things change so quickly. Five years ago, Kpop was a lot different than it is today. I started listening to it right before the idol boom, so I got into it during Kpop's transition period where solo artists were dominant to where idol groups are dominant.

Yes, I posted a Japanese song even though I dislike most of the Japanese music I hear. However, this is how I really got into Kpop. Way back when Inuyasha aired on [adult swim], I heard BoA's Every Heart and thought she was Japanese. Same with Younha when I heard her song Houki Boshi for Bleach. I never really became fans of either of them, but just liked those two songs. When I discovered m-flo's the Love Bug, I became hooked on BoA and m-flo. I learned a lot about both of them and found out that both BoA and Verbal were Korean. That lead me to listening to BoA's Korean songs and I found out that Verbal had collaborated with plenty of Korean artists under m-flo and as a solo artist.

So after listening to a shitload of BoA and m-flo songs, I had discovered that Emi Hinouchi collaborated with Epik High. The song, Flow, remains one of my favorite Epik High songs today. Shortly after that, Epik High had released their fifth album (and last good album.) After watching a shitload of Epik High MVs on Youtube, I had been introduced to a lot of artists that I still listen to today. For example, Younha, Jisun, Clazziquai, Drunken Tiger, Dynamic Duo, Leessang, etc.

For a whole year, I was able to avoid idols even though they were becoming the "it" thing in 2008. Wonder Girls were relevant back then, that's how long ago this was.

Then it happened.

Yes, Gee was the first idol song I heard. Shortly after, I had become a Sone. It was much easier following a group with nine members that had a lot of activities as opposed to just following BoA who wasn't really doing anything in Japan.

I started going on forums like Soshified, getting along with people there. Along the way, I would come to like many idol groups: Kara, T-ara, Secret, 4minute, 2NE1, f(x) etc. 2009 actually was a good year for idols. Everything was going great and this carried into 2010.

I had joined even more forums later in 2009 and 2010, going to Soompi and 6theory. I had mainly stuck with people in the "fandom" on those boards.

By the end of 2010, everything was falling apart. These groups were becoming more popular by the day and gaining a shitload of fans. These groups then started releasing shitty fucking songs. 2NE1 with Try To Follow Me. Okay, everything 2NE1 has released since 2010 has sucked. SNSD with Hoot. T-ara with Yayaya.

I hated all of these fucking songs. Yet, as I revealed my displeasure with these vile songs, I was receiving shit for everything. I had fandoms acting like monkeys who loved throwing their fecal matter everywhere.

In early 2011, I had enough of the shit. I got run out of Tiara Diadem along with some of the other founding members here. I got tired of allkpop's shit and got banned for posting porn. However, unlike the rumors out there say, I didn't cause 6theory to close down, as I wasn't the one posting gore. I had been banned for over a year before 6theory closed down.

Suckmydee and Lickmypunani persuaded me to start AKF and they both helped spread the word out while I invited Bou and Gayvid to be authors at the start. I just needed a place to share my opinions without fangirls pissing and moaning all of the time about my opinions. Okay, that part still hasn't changed.

However, the creation of AKF allowed me to discover new groups since I tried reviewing groups outside of what I normally listened to. Then it dawned on me: no matter what genre you listen to, no matter what country the song comes from, you're going to think that 90% of what you listen to sucks ass. This has always been my experience. I started reviewing more songs that I hated because it was much easier to rip on a song than to praise one.

AKF has allowed me to stay a fan of Kpop because it has forced me to listen to artists/groups I never would have. If you look at the groups that initially got me into Kpop, I would have stopped listening by now. SNSD sucks ass, Kara's busy releasing Jpop (and I hate their Japanese songs), 2NE1 hasn't released anything worth listening to since I Don't Care, I haven't liked a 4minute song since I My Me Mine, etc. etc.

Who knows what the next five years will bring. Will I enjoy about Kpop as I was when I first discovered it in 2008? No, because I don't now. The brand new feeling faded away, just as it did for Jpop. However, what keeps me listening to Kpop (and Jpop) is discovering new groups/artists. Everyone has their heyday and they'll eventually start releasing music you don't like. Don't let nostalgia hold you down. Free yourself from those chains and venture outside what you normally listen to. I always find artists/groups that keep me listening. I don't need 9038457334535 groups to release 90384592348929374927130174072134 songs a year to keep me entertained. I'm never "bored" by Kpop like a lot of fans claim because I don't try to follow everything all the time. That's why you'll see me make several posts in the same day instead of making brand new articles everyday. Kpop is just something I enjoy listening to, not the center of my life like how some Kpop fans tend to treat the genre.

I think the opposite. Usually, their title songs were the only track that's decent till around 2010 and then it all went downhill. Maybe if you're LUCKY you find one in their album that's even tolerable. Now, SNSD is basically riding off their popularity like when I Got a Boy was released though we all know that song was half-assed because the creator of that song also made Tell Me Your Wish.

SNSD's albums have always been terrible. I own the Gee and Genie mini albums, along with the Run Devil Run repackage album. The lead tracks are the only songs worth listening to from SNSD. I thought this was supposed to be the norm until I started listening to non-SNSD idol groups.

"The lead tracks are the only songs worth listening to from SNSD."This is just about as objectively incorrect as an opinion can be. Their albums aren't full of interesting, fun tracks, but literally no group in k-pop is. Way To Go, Star Star Star, Telepathy, Trick, Vitamin, Express 999, and Romantic St. are all songs that are good, at least for k-pop. In addition, they have quite a few good songs on their Japanese albums.

Trick is the only one among those that's "good", Rob.'Express 999' sounds like it was made in the 80's (and in a bad non-campy way), and features irregular key-changes to the likes of IGAB, which usually works, if your song is called Hopeless Host, or Growls Garden, and features actual rhythm foreshadowing.'Romantic st.', 'Telepathy', and 'Vitamin' outs your bias, as those songs are not only extremely safe and repetitive, but could easily be attributed to any other group (I'm thinking Afterschool with 'Telepathy'), alas 'Romantic St.' to lesser degree than the 2 others. All feature typical 4 measure repeat synth-sampled "kill me" progressions. I'll accept that one can like 'Way To Go'. Too catchy to let slip, but far to bland for me, and I assume anyone with standards, to actively like. Guitars? YAY! Post-recording PC generated Distortion? yay? Repetitive Drop chords? OH FUCK YOU!Nice try Rob, though look up objective, 'cause I don't think it means, what you think assholes like me or Chuck, can be fooled into thinking, what it means.

But there are plenty of idol groups with full-length albums worth listening to, so I stand by my original comment. I wanted to snap my RDR CD in half after I listened to it. I bought this album right after I bought T-ara's Breaking Heart repackage album, an album where I like 14/16 songs on that album. I don't even think I like 14 songs out of SNSD's whole discography. Hell, even Kara has good full-length albums.

Feel free to disagree, but by this point in time, it should be painfully obvious that I don't possess the music knowledge Infamist and Kpopalypse have, but there are certain things that I look for in songs. Since these are idol groups, I don't come in with the expectation that everything will be jjangbak, but at the very least, the songs have to be listenable and enjoyable. Many of SNSDs filler tracks do not fit that criteria because of super banal lyrics, allowing the shitty singers to have too much singing time, and the actual composition of the songs are weak compared to their title tracks. There's a good reason I stopped listening to SNSD once I discovered other girl groups who released better songs/albums.

"Okay, everything 2NE1 has released since 2010 has sucked. SNSD with Hoot."Have to absolutely disagree. The past ~2 were crap, but up until (incl.) Paparazzi they continued to have good songs.And 2NE1's I love you is a great dance song.

I've made this point before, but Hoot was their last 'safe' release, a song & a promotion that the company could be sure would be successful, and it's the one that cemented their place at #1 in Korea. That's why their two subsequent releases, and the sub-unit, were more experimental, and why their Japanese releases were a lot closer to the traditional formula. It would've been stupid to release IGAB as a Japanese promotion, but not in Korea, because why keep doing the same thing over & over again? It hasn't exactly worked out for Wonder Girls.

Haha best song(ive mentioned.this lots of times on ur blog, cos u post it a lot) and I too thot hot Boa was japanese cos of her nasal voice. For me I got into kpop for Dbsk. And now, I dont really keep up with the music (unless its big bang, sj, snsd or dbsk comebacks) im in it for the scandals. And I got a life. plus, I kinda have a love/hate relationship for anything Korean. for me jpop>kpop but jrock>jpop. Yeah...

"Who knows what the next five years will bring. Will I enjoy about Kpop as I was when I first discovered it in 2008? No, because I don't now. The brand new feeling faded away, just as it did for Jpop. However, what keeps me listening to Kpop (and Jpop) is discovering new groups/artists. Everyone has their heyday and they'll eventually start releasing music you don't like. Don't let nostalgia hold you down. Free yourself from those chains and venture outside what you normally listen to. I always find artists/groups that keep me listening. I don't need 9038457334535 groups to release 90384592348929374927130174072134 songs a year to keep me entertained."

After reading all that, ^this paragraph sums up what older or lessor obsessed fans are venting nowadays. I also got into k-pop sum 5 years ago and my first were Lee hyori, 1tym and Rain. It wasn't their new stuff but their older material I search out first before really getting into the music.

But when the idol group craze started, I got swept away in that too. And yes my first was SNSD "Gee" and found myself picking favorites. But I am lucky that I never heavily got into fan sites, fiction or wars.

I listen to J-rock and metal groups and not really J-pop or hip hop. I find the best music from Japan is their rock and jazz not their pop. For Korea its their pop and hip hop and China their ballads are amazing. I don't consider myself savvy on Asian music and quite selective on what I listen to.

K-pop both new and continuing are becoming rather stale. The K-pop marketing goes through phases and this can last for a couple of years. Right now the idol group is strong but soloist, especially female soloist, are making a steady comeback. Overall there isn't much going on in K-pop to fuss about but it has become mundane and predictable.

I discovered Kpop around 4 or 5 years ago, the first song I ran into was Big Bang's Haru Haru. Then I start looking into more groups and found I turned into a fan for a couple of them. By around 2011, my interest plateaued, nothing really "wowed" me like it did when I went on a "Kpop craze" when I was checking everything out from the past up to the present when I first discovered it. But I'm gonna stick around for it a little bit longer and hopefully my opinion will change. Jpop....Jpop is okay. Tbh, it's hard for me to get into Jpop myself. EXILE, Perfume, and Kyary are pretty much the only people that keeps me interested right now when it comes to that genre. But Jrock is the shit and artists like DJ Ozma and GReeeeN are too. I also noticed music from other Asian countries, like Tpop for example, is emerging and they been getting noticed internationally as well.

I hate Kawaii songs but j-rock is pretty good. I am already tired of K-pop and it's been less than a year. I've seen all the groups, even the new ones and I've liked some of them but sometimes it feels like the market is too small and saturated. No one tries anything new successfully. 2NE1 has a few good songs but they are over-hyped. Same with SNSD. I loved T-ara's Yayaya because it made no sense. 4minute, for me, are hopeless

I've been into KPOP since late 2007, when Baby Vox Re.V came to my country and they were everywhere. I loved Shee and Never Say Goodbye, and throughout the upcoming few years, I never really gave a shit about the idol groups craze. If I like something, I listen to it. That was pretty much it. I got intensely into mainstream KPOP in 2011, when I became a raging Shawol and also 6 months before this blog came pushed me away from the abyss of utter delusion and stupidity. Nowadays, it's really sad to see the groups I used to love release such songs that I could never finish listening to (IGAB for example). I'm still into KPOP and all (mainstream groups like Infinite, BTOB, BAP, and all those amazing OST singers have not gone ballistic with dubstep yet), but the majority is getting quite shitty these days.

It's also hard to find a single female fan who's not completely wild for EXO.

The korean game "Audition" introduced me to Kpop, from Baby Vox, Koyote, Turbo, Seo Tai Ji, BoA, woon2ne, Epik High, Kim Tae Woo, BEG, PSY, SeeYa, Davichi and many more. I got hooked pretty quick, since, I liked most of the korean songs. I really liked the non-idol songs ( the older ones, though I am not into the indie ones), the slow songs were beautiful, the fast upbeat songs like Koyote's were really my type of songs, so despite me stopped playing audition, I still follow the korean music trend.

When then the idol era came, I actually liked MOST of the songs, SNSD's Gee was one of my fav (but I'm bored as fuck with it now lol), T-ara's 'TTL' was pure gold, wonder girls' 'tell me' was also good, even I used to quite like Big Bang, 'Lies' and 'Haru-Haru' were good, everything was just really beautiful.

I really don't know what happened, but it seems that the current kpop songs are more americanized, I liked Big Bang's 'Fantastic Baby', but I just think it almost has no kpop feel, also whatever wannabe shit 2PM and GD TOP was releasing. 2ne1 also got fucking worse, i don't care was their best (I still don't think it's that good though). The only groups and soloers so far that still has that unique Kpop feel imo is BEG, T-ara, SISTAR, Davichi, December, KTW etc.

Well it doesnt mean that I hate the more recent kpop, I mean there's groups like Secret, Miss A, Orange Caramel, EXID and soloers like Ailee that is really good and stands out from the Niagara fall of shit kpop has been releasing/producing/excreting recently.